


Homunculus! Become Thyself!

by i_eat_men_like_air



Category: A Field In England (2013)
Genre: Alchemy, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Biting, Bloodplay, Bondage, Comeplay, Extremely Dubious Consent, Fingers In His Mouth Monday, Forced Orgasm, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Herbalism, Horny Descriptions of Nature, M/M, Mention of pregnancy, Mess Kink, Mushrooms, Occultism in Sex, Oral Fixation, Unsurprisingly Unsafe BDSM Practices, Violence, Vomit (but not really), Whipping, Whitehead Sudden Gender Crisis.JPG, Whitehead Thembofication Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:28:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29470965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_eat_men_like_air/pseuds/i_eat_men_like_air
Summary: Can occult gay sex with an Irish wizard bring out your latent magical abilities? Perhaps.
Relationships: Whitehead/O'Neil
Comments: 10
Kudos: 3





	1. Entrance

**Author's Note:**

> More tags to be added as this continues.

Whitehead whimpered as the wizard O’Neil shoved him into the tent. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down his back, and he shivered at the sensation, eyes widening as he turned around to watch O’Neil tie the entrance to the tent closed. 

‘Lookin’ a little nervous there, Whitehead,’ O’Neil chuckled, his voice low and rich in the small space. 

Whitehead gulped, the cogs in his head frantically turning as he looked around the tent. It was almost entirely empty, save a cot perpendicular to the door, and a large case of heavily marked parchment positioned at the tent’s back. Next to the bed there was also a smaller case, black and buckled, and Whitehead followed the wizard’s gaze to the case with nervous eyes. 

‘I am not _nervous_ sir, I am beside myself! And now _you_ ought to submit yourself to the full extent of the law immediately! While the extent of your crimes may be unpardonable I am _sure_ that I can convince-‘ 

O’Neil cut him off, letting out a bark of laughter. 

‘ _Submit_ ? Oh, Whitehead…’ his voice trailed off with a smirk, ‘I will not be submitting to anything or any _one_ , not ever again.’

His eyes glittered, the tent dimmed the bright sunlight outside, but a sliver of light was coming through the entrance where it had not been tied tightly, creating a slash of shining gold across O’Neil’s face. Whitehead gazed at the gap in the tent’s entrance, longing for the wide open space of the field, of the battle, anything but the rapidly warming claustrophobia of the tent. His hands shook, and he winced as a tingling sensation shot through them. 

The wizard stepped forward, crowding Whitehead against the wall of the tent until he was hunched to the shape of it, his head bowed low. O’Neil chuckled again, crooking a finger beneath Whitehead’s chin and forcing his face upwards until their eyes were meeting. 

‘Do you fear me, Whitehead?,’ he asked the sunlight in his face highlighting the pale, watery blue of his eyes and the pronounced shape of his nose.

‘ _Fear_ you, sir? Absolutely not!’ Whitehead failed miserably to make the statement sound convincing, his voice catching on the final word and tripping him into a shameful silence.

He tried to stare defiantly into the taller man’s eyes, tried to maintain some sense of the righteous fury he felt in his stomach, but he felt his jaw quiver, and his hands trembled still. _Coward_ . Trower’s word echoed through him as O’Neil’s eyes bore into his own, the way the eyes of a cat might burn upon the skin of its prey before it pounces. _Coward_.

O’Neill huffed a laugh, his breath sour and warm over Whitehead’s face.

‘You don’t fear me, hm? Oh, Whitehead...,’ he leant down until his mouth was level with Whitehead’s ear, his breath now making Whitehead flinch like a startled rabbit.

‘You will.’

The finality in O’Neil’s voice made Whitehead’s hands shake ever more violently, but when he attempted to clasp them across his stomach they were grabbed tightly in large, rough hands, dragged behind his back. He had felt like some startled little creature, desperately trying to hide his soft, white underbelly from the larger predator, and now that promise of a shield was taken away his knees, too, began to tremble. He tried to speak, to demand to know what O’Neill intended for him, but it seemed as if his tongue had become numb. All he could do was whimper, so much like wounded prey.

‘Cat got your tongue, Whitehead?’ O’Neil chuckled in his ear.

The wizard was so close to him now that Whitehead felt almost faint; the power radiating off of the taller man made the tent’s atmosphere all the more oppressive, and the heat of his body was a terrifying suggestion. An intense feeling of nausea rushed over him as he looked down and realised what O’Neil was now doing with his hands. The fastenings of his collar and cuffs were being removed, and so were those that bound his doublet at the front. Whitehead tried to lurch away from the wizard - horrified at the sense of being undressed so ruthlessly - but as he moved he found he was held rigidly still by a force he could not see, wrapped around him like a vice. Whitehead squirmed, feeling for all the World like a lowly little earthworm, captured by a sadistic child before being sliced across the middle. 

He whimpered in shame as he felt O’Neil remove his last protection from nakedness - his simple, white shirt - and tried again to cover himself, hands scrabbling towards his stomach and chest before being held firmly behind his back by one of O’Neil’s far larger hands. He stared down at himself, pale, soft white flesh covered in a barely-there dusting of hair. _Barely a man._ O’Neil’s eyes were burning against his skin, now, pale blue irises eclipsed by wide, black irises. Unnaturally wide, horribly dark irises, Whitehead gulped; O’Neil was barely a man, too.

Whitehead strained against the hands encircling his wrists, pudgy, soft muscle worming uselessly in the trap. The wizard grinned at this, and Whitehead whimpered once more as he stared at his teeth. They had not been so sharp, so white, before? Had they?

Whitehead nearly fell when O’Neil stepped away, having barely noticed that he had been propping himself up against the man; malleable as the canvas of the tent against its supports. He heard a low, horrible chuckle from O’Neill, and his stomach clenched viciously as the wizard’s hands dug into his bare, soft shoulders and turned him roughly to face the canvas wall of the tent. 

In the clenching silence of the tent, it was almost a relief when O’Neil’s heated, pulsating body appeared at his back, and Whitehead all but fell backwards into the taller man’s chest. The relief was soundly short lived, however, due to the sudden roughness of rope passing down his neck to rest midway down his torso. He opened his eyes, surprising himself with the fact that they were closed, and was confronted with a length of rope circling his stomach.

Once again, he tried to speak, to ask what in the name of God the accursed wizard thought he was doing, but once again his tongue betrayed him. The rope circled once, twice, around his stomach, before being looped beneath both of his armpits, and drawn tightly to an X shape across his chest and back. He hissed as the rope cut into the tender flesh below his arms, and scratched at his throat, and he let out a small cry as it grazed his nipples, his writhing to escape the restraint doing nothing to alleviate the roughness of the rope against such delicate flesh. 

The air in the tent was becoming all the more oppressive as he felt the humidity upon his bare skin, and a shiver slipped down his spine as he considered how he must appear. What if one of the others walked in? Cutler, or Jacob? He was bound like some kind of twisted saint, neck bared by the pressure of the rope, brought low by such an unholy creature.

Whitehead jumped in surprise, shocked out of his thoughts as he felt himself yanked backwards by way of the rope. O’Neil spun him quickly, grinning wide to reveal those sharp, crooked teeth as he fisted the X at Whitehead’s chest and tugged him forwards. Whitehead stumbled, yelping pathetically as he found himself buried face first in O’Neil’s doublet. 

It smelled like the earth, a musky, mushroomy scent, and Whitehead found himself briefly intoxicated before he felt himself pulled back by a hand at the base of his skull. He winced at the sharp pain there, the hand having taken a hold upon the soft, fine hair there to use as some form of bodily lever. 

Whitehead closed his eyes, not wanting to see how O’Neil leered at him, not wanting to think of the implications behind that toothy grin. The grin of a fox; monstrous, sharp, and overpowering, was all that came to mind.

‘The things I could show you, Whitehead. Such terrifying things, such beautiful, _magical_ things,’ came O’Neil’s voice in his ear, only this time he felt no breath accompany it, and before he could open his eyes to confirm his suspicion - that the man was somehow projecting his voice - he felt something soft cover his eyes and be tied firmly at the back of his head. 

‘I could show you everything, Whitehead, all the burning, bruising horrors of the world, if only you would allow it.’

There was silence; blessed, blissful silence, for a moment, and Whitehead allowed himself a sigh of relief before a sudden, blinding pain shot through him. It took him a moment to ascertain the origin, his body shaking with the sensation. The understanding made all the blood drain from his face. O’Neil had bitten him. _Bitten him!_ Like some kind of feral dog! 

The pain radiated from his shoulder, and he could all but feel the impressions of those jagged canines upon the tender skin there. Something warm - warm and vital - followed the pain, and he whimpered as he realised it was blood. Still, his voice would not let him protest, not even a whisper, and he resigned himself to yelping like an animal as O’Neil bit him again, this time on his opposite shoulder. 

The pain was hot and sharp, as if O’Neil had suddenly grown terrifying, preternatural fangs while Whitehead’s vision was obscured, but there was something beneath it as well. Something bordering on holy that Whitehead dare not examine. A fierce, martyring agony. The pain of a man bound before the burning heat of Hell’s gates: cleansing, terrifying, freeing.

‘You are quite a sight, Whitehead, trussed up in such a way,’ Whitehead could _hear_ the smirk in O’Neil’s voice with a dawning sense of horror, 'this will be your becoming.'


	2. Extraction

Whitehead gasped as teeth dug into the tender flesh of his neck, gulping at the air with desperate, panicked movements. He jerked away from the sensation, terrified of the pain, terrified of what it might bring to the surface.

He had so often felt it; the tingling, the pins in his fingertips, the pooling of heat in his stomach, and each time he felt it, he had prayed. He had fallen to his knees, night after night, praying until his knees bled against hard stone floors, and begged for it to be taken from him; begged for God to purge it from him with His light, with His flame. With anything,  _ anything _ , as long as it was torn from his soft, sinful body and cast back to whatever pit it had come from. 

He whined into the heated air of the tent, pulling against the ropes, against those invisible bonds, but still his body would not move. His tongue would not talk. 

O’Neil’s nose brushed against the nape of his neck, quickly followed by those sharp, blinding teeth, pinning him there. Bitten at the nape like a kitten, limp and incapable of higher thought, Whitehead felt his knees give way.

There was no time there, as he fell, no sense of place. The World was black, silent, heated beyond anything he had felt before. Perhaps he was dead? Perhaps O’Neil had taken his fill and torn out his throat. This could be freedom. Sinking slowly into a dark, sun-hot void, away from all that would do him harm.

‘ _ Easy there, Whitehead _ ,’ came a sonorous voice at his inner ear.

Perhaps not, then.

Powerful arms were around him, now, dragging him to the surface of the black, hot, timeless lake he had so quickly resigned himself to. Whitehead gasped at the feeling, once again pulling air into his lungs with wild abandon. The scent of O’Neil filled him to the brim; mushrooms, at the top, burying the musk of hops, of mugwort, two blessed plants that Whitehead knew well.

He could have drowned in that scent now, limbs weak and pliant, head swimming with the heat, but there were those teeth again, clasping around his throat. There was that tell-tale, trickling warmth; his blood, a charging, crackling red-gold line.

‘You taste of Iron, Whitehead,’ O’Neil’s voice echoed through him, and Whitehead shivered, ‘Iron, Earth, Salt, Copper.’

O’Neil punctuated each word with a lash of his tongue against Whitehead’s bloodied skin. Whitehead whined at each achingly warm touch, writhing against the hot, wet lines that O’Neil drew with his tongue.

‘Such duality within you, eh, homunculus? Such potential,’ the wizard growled, his voice vibrating through Whitehead’s body, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

Whitehead hissed at the word.  _ Homunculus _ . Trower had called him the same. Had O’Neil forced that word from the dying man’s mouth? Was that what he truly was? Barely made? A creature still reliant on the body of its mother?

He found with a start that his knees did not ache, here; soft ground cushioned him, covered by canvas. All of his body was aflame: chest aching from the rope; neck and shoulders throbbing from their freely bleeding wounds; prick…

Whitehead hiccuped out a sob, shaking at the thought. His prick was hard. Horribly, sinfully hard. He never took himself in hand; his master forbade it, saying the act polluted the mind. Whitehead had never questioned it, had listened attentively as the man spoke of the horrors of men who would dirty their bodies with such an act. Any tumescence he found between his legs would be washed away with cold water and work, so he could go about his tasks as a good, clean, God-fearing man. For he was a good, clean, God-fearing man, wasn’t he?

Now, shivering, feeling the rigidity of his flesh against his breeches, he felt awash with terror. O’Neil would not touch him there, would he?  _ Would he? _

The question, so small in Whitehead’s mind, flickered with a perverse, Devilish hope.  _ Oh God _ .

Whitehead tried to speak, opening his mouth to say something,  _ anything _ , to try and convince the man to let him be. To let him leave this place and retreat back to the outside, to return to his place in the field; broad sky and shivering grass a balm for his wounds. Cool wind a kindness to his burning, aching flesh.

Instead of words, however, he found himself choking on something long, and broad.  _ Finger _ , his mind supplied.  _ Fingers _ , he corrected, weakly, as they parted upon his tongue.  _ Three fingers _ . 

O’Neil’s fingers were in his mouth. He tried to cry out, to protest the intrusion, but no sound came. Only the mewl of some small, weak prey, impaled by a larger beast. 

Whitehead tried to swallow, to clear his mouth of the saliva that was welling up within. His tongue spasmed as he did, and he whimpered, achieving nothing but a flood of drool that spilled forth from his stretched lips. 

Hops again, he thought, dimly. The bitter taste coated his tongue as O’Neil’s fingers explored the inside of his mouth. They rubbed over his back teeth, caressed the rough, bitten skin of his cheeks, toyed with the thin membrane of skin that connected his tongue to the base of his mouth. 

Whitehead tried to bite against them, tried to force them from his body with a gurgling whine, tried to thrash against the penetration, and he heard O’Neil chuckle before him: 

‘Now, now, Whitehead, steady yourself there; there are far worse things than this.’

Whitehead shuddered at this, willing his mind away from the images the wizard’s words conjured up. Images of intrusion, of laceration, of penetration. His mouth was so full, his jaw aching, and he coughed out a whimper as he felt even more saliva trickle down his chin, down his throat, mingling slickly with the blood that still flowed.

_ Surely it should have stopped now, surely he should not still be bleeding? _

His prick jumped in his breeches, and he sobbed again, frantically trying to writhe away from the agony of it.  _ Blissful, burning agony.  _

He gulped heavily, tongue once more jerking against the fingers that stroked within him, trying to save some dignity.  _ Drooling down himself like a vagrant? _ It made his stomach twist, and his lungs shake; he was better than this. Wasn’t he?

‘That’s it, Whitehead. Give in. Open yourself to it,’ O’Neil’s voice was low, and rich, and Whitehead shuddered as he felt the man’s tongue ghost at the stretch of his lips.

Disgust welled up in his throat, bile churning up and threatening to overwhelm him, as O’Neil’s fingers slipped from his mouth, only to be replaced with a biting, burning kiss. Whitehead cried into the wizard’s mouth, a pained, animal sound that was wrung from his burning throat. O’Neil’s spit-slicked fingers traced the rope at Whitehead’s throat and chest, before finding their place at his raw, aching nipples. 

The chafe of the rope had not let up, and for a moment the soft, cooling caress of O’Neil’s fingers felt like a blessing, until the wizard twisted them - ruthlessly. Whitehead tried to arch into the touch -  _ or was it away from the touch? _ \- screaming at the sensation, but his body would not move. He trembled, sobbing into it -  _ away from it?  _ \- his prick throbbing shamefully against the rough fabric of his breeches.

O’Neil kissed him through it, sharp teeth biting at the rapidly swelling skin of his lips, leaving tiny, bleeding pinpricks in their wake. Whitehead felt tears begin to fall from his eyes, dampening the fabric of the blindfold, trying desperately to will them away; not wanting to weep in front of this  _ creature _ , this  _ beast _ that was licking into his mouth.  _ Licking so beautifully _ . 

Whitehead heaved in fear at the thought, bile rising from his twisting stomach and promptly spilling over his lips.  _ That isn’t vomit, that isn’t bile, please, God, what is this? _ He retched, heaving loudly, and shuddering in horror at the realisation that O’Neil wasn’t stopping his assault upon his mouth - wasn’t stopping as the liquid fell down his chin and onto his chest. The man was lapping at the spilling liquid as if it were nectar, suckling at his lips and tongue as a babe would at its mother’s teat, and Whitehead retched again at the sensation.

‘Let it out, Whitehead, there you go,’ O’Neil breathed into his mouth, hot and wet and  _ disgusting _ .

Whitehead whined as he felt O’Neil’s fingers thrust into his mouth again, choking and shuddering as they hit the back of his throat. More of the liquid spilled from his mouth as he retched uncontrollably, spilling down his body, mingling with the blood, with the saliva. He tried to bite O’Neil again, his jaw exhausted with the effort, but the bite wouldn’t come. Those invisible bonds would only let him whine, and squirm, and weep. 

Whitehead’s tears mingled with the fluids covering his face and chest, slick saltiness amidst a mess he dare not imagine. He retched again, throat fluttering against O’Neil’s fingers, and he wept as he realised there was no more. He was empty, all the tasteless liquid was covering him, now. Coating him from chin to stomach.

He shivered as the fingers retreated from his throat and mouth, scraping over his tongue as they disappeared, leaving a trail of hops behind them.

‘There you go, Whitehead, there’s a lad,’ O’Neil’s breath was at his ear now, and Whitehead flinched away from it as best he could; muscles quivering and straining against his bondage. 

He gurgled pathetically, whining as O’Neil’s hands ghosted over his chest and stomach.

‘You’ve a soft belly, Whitehead, soft like a girl’s, hm?’ O’Neil snickered, kneading his fingers into the flesh and causing Whitehead to yelp.

His face burned with shame. He was not the finest figure of a man: not broad, or strong, or tall, but he had never thought of his body as that of a  _ girl’s _ . Perhaps he was a little softer, a little wider at the hip, but surely not a  _ girl _ . 

He made to protest, but the urge died on his tongue, filling his mouth like a dying bird; protesting was not something he could do, here. The bonds around him were firm, and the dullness of his tongue had not abated. It was as if O’Neil’s voice had suddenly deflated him, a pin in a pig’s bladder.

‘Oh, come now, Whitehead, you think that’s so bad, do you?’ O’Neil’s voice had dropped again, low and growling, ‘there’s a duality in you, as I said, something begging to be brought to the surface. Something you need dragging out; like a splinter, or a sword, or a babe trapped in the belly, hm?’

Whitehead sobbed wetly as he felt O’Neil’s tongue at his throat, lapping at the mess there before he spoke again:

‘I intend to be the one to pull it to the surface, Whitehead.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on the plants and alchemical elements/primes/metals mentioned in this chapter, based on the research I have done for my own practice, and on herbalism and alchemy in general:
> 
> -Hops have the meaning of creativity, sexuality and divination.  
> -Mugwort has the meaning of scrying, divination, psychic ability and lucid dreaming.  
> -Earth in alchemy represents the aspect of the Daughter and pentacles in tarot (wealth, material possessions).  
> -Iron, in alchemy, is related to Mars (a planet associated with a masculine aspect).  
> -Salt, in alchemy, is related to the Mother aspect, and the physical form of the body.  
> -Copper, in alchemy, is related to Venus (a planet associated with a feminine aspect).  
> -Mercury (this is what Whitehead is vomiting up), is related to Mercury (surprisingly) in alchemy, and is a planet that is not confined to a masculine or feminine aspect; it is changeable depending on which other planets it interacts with, and had no set 'gender' on its own. 
> 
> My research (shockingly, we're on Ao3 lads) is not definitive and I'm not claiming these are the only interpretations for these elements/herbs etc., but these are the explanations for how I interpret them based on what I have researched.


	3. First Release

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whitehead discovers the epic highs and lows of getting a handjob from a wizard.

Whitehead’s breath was coming out in heavy, gasping gulps. He felt as if he had been flayed, his vital fluids and organs on display to the wizard who now stood before him. O’Neil’s words made him shiver, and in a haze, he could not identify  _ why _ . Fear? Hatred? Almost definitely; he was terrified. He loathed the man in front of him. 

Whitehead yelped as he felt O’Neil’s hands at his shoulders, large and calloused. God, what if it wasn’t fear? Or hatred? He shivered again, goosebumps rippling over his exposed torso, his prick throbbing where it stood.  _ Arousal; anticipation. _ What would this creature bring into the light? 

He swayed as much as his bonds would allow him, lightheaded, as O’Neil’s hands parsed along his shoulders and chest, feather-soft. 

‘You’re lovely, Whitehead, I’d reckon you were made for this. Soft as a girl, and  _ hard _ as a man, hm?’ O’Neil chuckled, and Whitehead let out a strangled scream as the wizard’s boot pressed against his prick.

‘I thought you might be enjoying this, Whitehead,’ came the wizard’s voice at his ear, a growl of a thing, ‘there’s power in this, coming to the surface. But slowly slowly, eh? We’ve no rush, here.’

Whitehead sobbed, another garbled cry was wrenched from him as O’Neil took to his knees and unlaced his breeches with steady, warm hands.  _ So warm _ . A knot of disgust, of guilt, built in his stomach, threatening to spill down his front once more. 

The fluids on his chest and stomach were cooling slowly, a balm to the chafe of the rope. But there was still a warmth upon him, and Whitehead shuddered as he realised it was the blood. His blood. Still trickling from the bites upon his neck and shoulders, four points beneath his skull.

Yet another scream came from Whitehead, from some deep, shameful place in his gut; O’Neil’s hand was on his prick, rough, grasping. He strained, and strained against his bonds, willing them away. He froze. 

Freedom. The bonds had stretched, if only for a second, and he had been free. They were back, in a flash, but he had broken them. He had freed himself, just for a moment. Whitehead gulped in amazement.

O’Neil, his voice still at Whitehead’s ear, chuckled darkly:

‘There you are, Whitehead, coming to the surface.’

Whitehead gasped as O’Neil’s hand moved on his prick. Long, firm movements; confident, unrushed. He had never felt anything like it. Darts of aching, horrible lust shot up his spine, settling at the base of his skull. The pinpricks he had so desperately prayed away were tingling across his body, as heaving waves of terror washed over him. Terror and quivering, wretched lust.

He let out a sob as O’Neil’s hand caught at the tip of his prick, and O’Neil breathed out a laugh.

‘You see what that old man kept from you, Whitehead, all of  _ this _ ,’ O’Neil punctuated the final word with a squeeze, and Whitehead felt as if all bonds had fallen away; he was in that lake again, falling, burning, free.

‘All of this, Whitehead, give yourself over to it, let it consume you.’

O’Neil’s hand began to move slickly along his prick as he spoke, and Whitehead fell, the movements slicker than they had been to begin with. It felt like fire, sinful, cleansing fire, as O’Neil stroked him. 

Whitehead whimpered in realisation; his prick was leaking, that was the source of the slickness. He was wet.  _ Like a girl _ . 

‘Aye, just like a girl; not so different, are we?’ O’Neil’s voice echoed through him.

Whitehead shuddered against his bonds; how had O’Neil heard him? He couldn’t speak, for God’s sake! Was the wizard in his head, now?

His question was answered as O’Neil leaned in and began to lap at the fluid pooling in his clavicle:

‘Aye, Whitehead, I’m in your head.’

Whitehead yelped as O’Neil’s hand tightened on his prick, stroking faster and faster, twisting over the head with every pass. He strained upwards, against his bonds, muscles shaking with the effort of it. O’Neil’s hand flew at his length, wet, burning strokes; his foreskin slick and easily manipulated with the movement, sensitive head exposed and pulsing against the stifling air of the tent. 

Whitehead’s lungs were aching, the slick feeling of O’Neil’s hand drawing him to hyperventilation as it wrung all manner of shameful, cringing noises from him. He was whining and whimpering as a creature in season; desperate to be brought to completion, instinct and impulse alone driving him forward, chasing the hot, wet, quivering sensation.

O’Neil’s breath was at his ear; tall, broad body pressing against him. Heat and power radiated in wave upon potent wave. The lake encompassed Whitehead, stretching around him as the field did, smothering him in black, starless heat.

‘ _ I’m inside you, Whitehead.’ _

Whitehead  _ shrieked  _ as his release tore through him; that melting, shattering little death whipping through him as a wildfire would whip across dry grass. He threw his head back ( _ his bonds were broken!)  _ and screamed, shuddering again and again as O’Neil stroked at him, hot seed spilling forth and shooting across his torso. 

Fluid mingling with fluid, disgusting and saturating and  _ vital _ . His body shook uncontrollably, legs giving way and ribcage heaving.

O’Neil did not stop. His hand squeezed and teased across Whitehead’s length, milking the agonising, searing pleasure from him. Whitehead moaned at the sensation, thrusting up into the intoxicating warmth of the wizard’s palm, an animal part of his brain seeking  _ more _ . Only  _ more _ .

He was adrift in the lake, nought mattering but the rutting, primal pleasure of his spend, sunless, aching warmth permeating every inch of his physical form. Even the whisper of O’Neil’s voice was arbitrary, as it slipped inside him once more, easy as a pin through lace. 

There was only pleasure, from crown to toe. Shuddering, perfect pleasure. The likes of which Whitehead had never dreamed were possible. 

‘There you are, Whitehead, there you are,’ O’Neil’s voice whispered, over and over again, ‘beautiful.’

Whitehead trembled against the ground, warm and alive beneath his body. He could feel its pulse, beating in time with his own, claiming him as its own. A son, a daughter, a child beyond all definition. He ground his face against the floor of the tent until his blindfold fell away. The roughness of the canvas mattered little as he stared, awestruck, at the circle of mushrooms that appeared around him, encasing him, sheltering him.

Tears fell freely, now, wetting the material beneath him. The mushrooms fixed their gaze upon him, as Whitehead remembered to breathe, body shaking with fluttering, heaving gasps.

O’Neil was there, with him, but he was silent; only his steady, calm breath giving Whitehead an indication that he was still there. 

The mushrooms pulsed as Whitehead came back to himself, mind slithering in to rejoin his aching, trembling flesh. Pale, broad white caps growing from the canvas. Whitehead stared at them, wincing as he rolled over onto his back, intimately aware of how exposed he was beneath the gaze of the mushrooms, and of O’Neil. 

His prick twitched against his drenched, sticky stomach, and he whimpered. O’Neil was kneeling over him, face resting in an easy smile; eyes soft and unblinking, with those blown, black pupils boring into Whitehead. 

Whitehead looked down at himself, and shivered in horror at the state of his chest and stomach. Blood mingled with saliva mingled with semen mingled with...silver? Silver, trickling down his waist, pooling in his belly button, catching at his nipples. Shining in the sliver of light that cut through the tent’s entrance.  _ Mercury _ , his addled mind supplied, as he stared,  _ that is mercury _ .

O’Neil’s gaze turned to hunger as Whitehead moved to touch the unGodly mess, fingertips brushing against it in a haze, hardly believing that this had all come from him. Whitehead tried to speak - tried to ask O’Neil what this was - how he had vomited  _ mercury _ without dying, for God’s sake; but he found with a frown that his tongue was still numb. 

‘Taste it, Whitehead,’ O’Neil leaned closer, on all fours as he loomed over Whitehead’s supine form, ‘taste it.’

Whitehead shook his head, frantically, not wanting that horrible concoction anywhere near his mouth, but O’Neil would not be denied. The wizard grabbed Whitehead’s wrist with an iron grip, and jammed his fingers into his mouth. 

Whitehead grunted at the sudden intrusion, thrashing against it, but O’Neil held him firmly.

‘ _ Taste. It, _ ’ came the wizard’s insistence, and Whitehead shuddered as the fluids coated his tongue, braced for the horror of it.

But the horror never came.  _ Nectar, like honeysuckle nectar, like rose water, ambrosia _ . Whitehead sucked greedily at his fingers, suddenly understanding why O’Neil’s mouth had been so insatiable. 

His head fell back in ecstasy, eyes rolling up into his head as he suckled at himself, scooping up more of the essence and jamming it into his mouth like a child sucking honey from an apple.

O’Neil rumbled with laughter above him, watching closely as Whitehead took more of himself in, now with three fingers, now with four, all shoved into his mouth, chasing the impossible delicacy. Whitehead felt faint, the sweetness overwhelming him, and he whimpered as he felt his prick begin to harden against his stomach once again - the shame of it barely touching the pleasure of his taste upon his tongue.

‘There’s a lad, Whitehead, I’ve not finished with you yet,’ the wizard crooned, crouching over Whitehead like a cat playing with a mouse, ‘not even close.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm linking these mushrooms to the ones Whitehead eventually eats.   
> In my mind, this circle of mushrooms is the original bloom of the mushrooms that Whitehead finds before he goes apeshit. The mycelial network responds to the second phase of Whitehead's 'becoming' here, pushing the mushrooms through the canvas of the tent floor, and continue to create circles of mushrooms throughout the field, for him to draw strength from as needed.   
> I'm picturing them as basic horse mushrooms or field mushrooms as opposed to liberty caps or other, smaller 'magic' mushrooms - just because I like the image of 'mundane' (no mushrooms are really mundane) mushrooms being drawn to Whitehead from beneath the field, and linking with his magic. He makes them magic and they empower his magic, in a fun mushroom-homunculus cycle.


	4. Second Release

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The power of dry (wet?) humping compels Whitehead.

Whitehead stared up at O’Neil, panting. His arms lay limp at his sides, his fingers dripping wet onto the canvas, his lips swollen and sore.

O’Neil moved to straddle him, and Whitehead tried to wriggle out from, his attempts quickly aborted as he felt his prick grind up into O’Neil’s groin. Whitehead gasped, his head falling back.

‘Lie steady, Whitehead,’ O’Neil’s voice whispered in his ear, although the man did not move.

Whitehead whimpered as he felt O’Neil’s fingers play above his prick, and he looked down to see that the wizard was undoing his own breeches with unhurried deftness. He gulped, eyes now locking with O’Neil’s.

The wizard’s pupils were still black, and wide, and Whitehead could see that his teeth were still white and sharp. The bites at his neck and shoulder ached as he stared into the man’s mouth, pulsing sharply as blood continued to trickle from them, wetting his skin and the canvas in turn.

Whitehead twisted his head to the side, resting his cheek against the canvas, willing himself not to look at O’Neil as the wizard let out a shuddering sigh. His blood, his semen, his saliva, the mercury from his stomach, all were pooling on the ground, creating tiny, shimmering streams in the creases of the canvas. He licked at the canvas as best he could, greedily lapping up the concoction, taking as much as he could back into himself as he watched it trickle towards the mushrooms.

They were pulsing softly - with no light, nor sound - but a simple, firm power, radiating along the streams of Whitehead’s visceral fluids, towards where he lay. 

O’Neil groaned above him, and Whitehead’s eyes snapped away from the mushrooms, dragged to look at the wizard’s glittering eyes, at his shining teeth, at his straining prick. Whitehead whimpered as he looked at the member, tall and slender and proud against O’Neil’s black doublet.  _ Was this how the devil would take him?  _

‘Oh I’ll take you, Whitehead, I’ll take you, and I’ll fill that cunt of yours ‘til you scream, eh?’ O’Neil’s grin was predatory, teeth glimmering in what little sunlight was allowed to enter the tent.

‘But not yet, hm?’ O’Neil paused, scooping some of the liquid from Whitehead’s stomach and sucking it from his fingers, ‘not yet.’

Whitehead’s eyes widened, his mouth opening, trying to protest.  _ Cunt? _

His stomach clenched. O’Neil’s eyes were burning into him. He felt frantic, trapped. And he was, he supposed, just a rabbit caught in a snare, helpless, trembling. He whined, straining up against O’Neil.

The wizard growled at this, baring his teeth and pressing his forearm over Whitehead’s pale, bloodied throat. 

‘D’you like that, hm, Whitehead? You want to rut against me like an animal, eh?’ he chuckled, blocking the sun from Whitehead’s vision as he leaned in closer.

Whitehead shook his head violently, legs thrashing in a panic, and his eyes rolled back into his head as he ground up against O’Neil’s hardness. The wizard laughed, a sound that made Whitehead’s skin prickle up from his flesh.

‘Go on, Whitehead, rut that pretty cock of yours up against me,’ the wizard whispered in his ear, ‘bring yourself off, c’mon. Maybe I’ll let you go if you melt for me again…’

Whitehead shook his head again, hair sticking to the mess on his chin. He didn’t want that; didn’t want to rut against the wizard; he wasn’t an animal, for God’s sake! He didn’t…

And then O’Neil ground down against him, hips forcing their pricks together, and Whitehead gasped. The wizard buried his face in Whitehead’s bloodied neck, hair brushing over his face, the musk of hops and mugwort filling his nose along with another, newer smell.

Whitehead whimpered as he realised: that was  _ him _ , that was how  _ he smelled _ ; nectar and honey and sweetness. Such sweetness. O’Neil’s tongue pressed against the bite mark on his neck, and Whitehead bucked against him, hips and legs straining against the heft of the man, doing nothing but grinding their pricks together even further. 

‘That’s it, Whitehead, there you go,’ O’Neil growled into Whitehead’s neck, his weight a blistering, oppressive force.

Whitehead balled his hands at his sides, terrified of what they would do if he let them roam freely. He could touch O’Neil.  _ God, he could touch O’Neil _ . 

He wouldn’t. Whitehead gritted his teeth; he  _ wouldn’t, he mustn’t _ . 

He cried out as O’Neil thrust down against him, his prick twitching and burning against his stomach. It felt so good.  _ Too good _ . Good in the way that only a sin would feel; a horrible, damning sin. 

O’Neil nuzzled against his neck, still lapping at the bite mark he had left there, what felt like hours before.

He wanted to fight.  _ He should want to fight _ .  _ Should want to scream and kick and get away _ . But O’Neil was so warm above him, broad and steady; and his prick was velvet hot against Whitehead’s own, dripping length. He whined softly, face buried in O’Neil’s thin, musky hair, as he let his hips jerk upwards, almost weeping at the sensation.

O’Neil’s hands were on him, now, roaming up and down his chest and stomach, pinching mercilessly at his nipples, tugging at the rope to bring them ever closer together. Whitehead moaned at the sensation of it; writhing up into the friction rather than cowering away, hips grinding blissfully against O’Neil’s - forcing their pricks together. 

‘That’s it, Whitehead, fuck yourself up to me, eh? Fuck that little pearl up against me while I play with your tits, there you go, there you go,’ O’Neil’s breathed out. 

His accent was even thicker now as he egged him on, and Whitehead shivered as he witlessly ground up against the man.

He had never felt anything like it; this feverish, slick pull, the most intimate places on a human’s body grinding together - creating such shivers and quakes that he felt he might crawl from his skin and sink beneath the warm, wet Earth. His eyes fixed on the mushrooms, head falling back to give the illusion that they were growing from a vast, canvas sky. 

They throbbed silently, humming towards Whitehead, matching the pulse he felt in his prick as O’Neil thrust against him. 

Whitehead felt a oneness, a wholeness, and his core flooded with a warm, aching joy as he gave himself over to the sensation. He was floating once more, lighter than air, held close by the black warmth of the lake.

His release crept up on him, far slower than the first, warm and shuddering and  _ beautiful _ . He had never thought of himself as beautiful, before. 

O’Neil ground down against his prick one last time, breathing heavily into Whitehead’s neck, and Whitehead spent with a cry, bucking upwards and whining into the wizard’s hair as his release shook waves across his aching, arching body. 

Whitehead felt a flood of warmth over his stomach, unable to tell if the spend was his or O’Neil’s, and unable to care. The warmth seeped into him, and from him it sunk into the canvas, and the mushrooms around them, then back into his shivering, whining form.

O’Neil’s body was pulsing above him, suddenly oppressively hot, and Whitehead writhed below him. The wizard had said he might let him go, if he spent again, and perhaps he would?

_ Did he want to be free? _

Whitehead quivered as O’Neil pushed off of him; tall, angular frame unfolding until the wizard stood over him, red, softening prick obscenely contrasted against the black of his breeches, a sharp, biting grin on his face.

_ Was he free? _

Whitehead stared at the wizard’s prick, acutely aware of an ache between his legs, and a sudden wetness dripping from his mouth.  _ His mouth was watering _ . Watering for a prick to fill it.

Whitehead shuddered, overcome by terror and shame: the Devil had him, now. 

He heaved out a sob, shaking as O’Neil yanked him to his knees by the X of rope at his chest. He was doomed, he would burn, God would not help him here, not now he had given in.

_ Sin must be resisted; only the weak give in. Only the cowards. You are not a coward, are you, Whitehead? _

Whitehead shuddered against the pressure of the rope, weeping openly; watching the fluids covering his chest as they continued to drip from him.  _ The proof of sin _ . He whined, shameful, burning knots beginning to settle themselves into every muscle of his body. 

He hiccupped as O’Neil clasped his face between thumb and index finger, squeezing his cheeks into what must be a horrible caricature.

‘There you are, Whitehead. Sinful little creature. Let it out…’ O’Neil’s voice was not gentle, now - there was a mocking edge to it - and Whitehead stared up at him with terrified, watery eyes. 

The wizard’s eyes were now almost entirely black, pupils encompassing all but the very edges of the sclera, and Whitehead shivered in horror.  _ Barely a man. Still barely a man. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief note to say that while Whitehead is experiencing a lot of things at the moment, his sexual response (ahem) is more comparable to that of an AFAB person than an AMAB person, to emphasise that he is neither entirely male nor entirely female. This is also why he has such a short refractory period.  
> Thank you for reading my brief 'How Whitehead Comes' explanation.


	5. Third Release

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whitehead is whipped so hard he gets gender all over the sheets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This dove is so dead. Just so dead.

Once again the lake surrounded him. Black water licking against his bare skin, hot, wet caresses sending him into a shivering rapture. 

O’Neil’s eyes were there, now, black as the water, glimmering; inhuman. Whitehead felt his skin ripple as the wizard gazed at him.  _ Was this his fate? To be held in that gaze forever until God granted him release? Would God even hear him now? _

Teeth appeared, glittering in the black of the water, encased within a leering, slavering mouth.

‘No-one can hear you, Whitehead,’ the mouth spoke, and Whitehead shuddered as he realised it was O’Neil.

_ Always O’Neil _ .

‘Not even that  _ God _ of yours,’ the wizard chuckled, his voice rumbling through the void.

Whitehead shuddered at how O’Neil spoke the name of the Lord; all sneering, mocking contempt. Surely the man could not be so far gone that he would mock Him so openly.  _ Could he be so far gone? Was this to be his fate, too? _

There was a quiet  _ click _ at the corner of Whitehead’s hearing, and he turned his head, vision shimmering back to the floor of the tent; slick with fluid, rippled with mushrooms. O’Neil was no longer standing over him - now, inexplicably, the wizard was crouched by the cot.

O’Neil’s form obscured what his hands were doing, and Whitehead willed himself to sit up as he stared at the dark expanse of the man’s back. His stomach muscles ached, his arms and legs shook, and when he succeeded in pushing himself into a sitting position it was with a wheezing, pained  _ grunt _ . 

O’Neil turned to look at him, lips twisted into a laugh as his glittering eyes raked over Whitehead’s shaking, panting form.

‘So tired already, eh?’ the wizard shook his head in mock disappointment, ‘come now, Whitehead. You and I have a good way to go, yet.’

Whitehead trembled at O’Neil’s tone - iron dripping in lace - and he felt himself grow pale as O’Neil turned fully, revealing what his hands had been doing.

The black, buckled case that had drawn his eye when they had first entered this damned place, had been opened, its contents now hanging from one of O’Neil’s broad, calloused hands. Thin, black leather, plaited into seven, far thicker, cords; each cord interspersed with chestnut-sized knots, a-joined to a dark wooden handle. Whitehead felt a wave of nausea rise up and threaten to drown him, accompanied by another, horrifying wave of terrified arousal. 

_ What in God’s name was that? _

O’Neil covered the space between them in one easy stride, and grabbed the X at Whitehead’s chest with his free hand, hefting him to his feet with barely a sound. Whitehead’s legs all but gave out beneath him, knees turning to foole as O’Neil pressed a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss to his steadily bleeding throat. He struggled against the kiss, shaking and pulling away as best as his shivering muscles would allow, and letting out a horrified sob as he felt his prick begin to plump once again.

_ A prick should not be able to do this, surely? One and done, that was the rule for men, wasn’t it? _

Whitehead was certain, his knowledge of anatomy dimly bubbling to the surface, and he swallowed a whimper at the thought. A prick should not feel arousal such as this. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t normal. He was quickly hardening to full mast, whining like a beast as O’Neil passed his knuckles over the slick, hot flesh.

‘Not normal for a  _ man _ , perhaps,’ the wizard chuckled, teeth scraping over the shell of Whitehead’s ear.

Whitehead felt a shock of pinpricks ripple up his spine and gulped loudly.  _ Not normal for a man _ . 

‘But you’re  _ barely a man _ , remember, Whitehead,’ O’Neil’s breath was hot on Whitehead’s ear as he spoke, unnaturally hot, ‘ _ barely, barely. _ ’

Whitehead felt another sob rise in his throat, quivering and high and shameful, and he would have collapsed back to the slick ground beneath them if it weren’t for O’Neil’s grip on the rope where it crossed at his chest. Where it scraped over his nipples and cut into his waist.

‘Such a slender waist, eh Whitehead? And such lovely little tits,’ the wizard leered down at Whitehead, letting the cat trace over the bare, shivering softness of his chest.

Whitehead shook his head again, hair so slick with sweat that it almost hurt as it slapped at his face with the movement. He tried desperately to speak, to protest, to give anything to prove O’Neil false, but his tongue lay dull in his mouth; still unwilling to jump to his defense. 

‘I wonder if I could fill you with a child,  _ homunculus _ ? Make those little tits and that soft, slender belly swell? Hm?’ O’Neil’s head was cocked to one side, teeth bared in a smirk, the cat still tracing over Whitehead’s sticky, sore chest.

Whitehead shuddered at the thought, another wave of nausea rolling over him. 

_ To be filled by such a creature; to be a vessel for such evil; for his body to grow heavy with child _ . 

He retched, loudly, leaning heavily against O’Neil’s hand where it held him upright. The thought made his prick ache with a burning, horrible want; and he cursed his body silently.

_ Curse this form. Curse it for all it is worth. Wretched, lustful, sinful thing _ .  _ He was a man. A man! Surely... _

O’Neil chuckled again, his eyes now entirely black, dark, and knowing as the lake:

‘I thought you’d like that.’

The breath left Whitehead’s body in an  _ oof _ as he felt himself dragged around by the rope, and shoved forward onto the cot, O’Neil’s hands firm and unforgiving against his shaking body. 

It was soft - softer than he had expected - but the movement winded him to the point that stars blossomed before his eyes; his exhausted body laying flat and unmoving at the sudden and wholly unexpected pleasure of a soft bed. 

Whitehead couldn’t have moved if he wanted to; the shock of  _ comfort _ of all things rendering him insensate with relief.  _ Comfort! Here! Of all things… _

His face was buried in a soft, warm blanket, the smell of hops, mugwort, and mushrooms filling his nostrils. He breathed it in with a moan, finding himself unable to care that this was  _ O’Neil’s _ scent. His muscles eased, his face fell slack, his stomach ceased its cramping.

He screamed.

The leather struck upon Whitehead with such horrid, slicing force that he was sure it had cut to bone. That the thick, knotted strips would crack the delicate white vertebrae of his spine and leave him paralysed, forever unable to escape the man who wielded it.

The leather struck again, each twisted knot burning a musket ball into his back. Each braided strip carving a raw, quivering line into soft, pale skin. 

Whitehead wept, writhing away from the cat as it struck; cinder-like pinpricks causing him to yelp and wail as they raced beneath his skin. He jammed his face into the blanket as best he could, and pulled back from it with a keening whimper as the scent of the herbs and the mushrooms pulled an accursed  _ retch _ from his throat.

The leather struck again, and again, and again. Each time Whitehead screamed: louder and more horrified than the last, screaming to anyone who would hear, to anyone who could help, unable to muffle his screams in the unbearable, foul-smelling blanket.

The leather sliced into him, his ribs shuddering under the force, as O’Neil brought it down upon his back. His voice pitched ever higher the harder the cat fell - shameful and girlish and  _ terrified _ . 

Whitehead arched away from it, his back bowing against the bed, and he let out a panicked wail as his prick ground into the softness.  _ He was still hard. Harder than before, even. Cursed, failing flesh aching, burning, pulsing against the blanket. Against O’Neil’s blanket, grotesque as it was. _

The leather struck again, and Whitehead  _ howled _ . The pain was unlike any he had felt before. Liquid, white-hot, pulsating through him in hideous, rolling waves. 

He scrabbled at the blanket, hands sinking into the softness, shoving into the comfort of the bed before being dragged away from it time and time again by the lash of heavy, black leather. 

The lake rose up to meet him; hot and welcoming against his burning flesh. 

Whitehead sighed in relief. The heat was a balm, shuddering waves pressing into his wounds and rendering them painless; gentle kisses pushing the horror from his mind to some distant, harmless island where it could not touch him.

He felt his eyes roll back in his head as the water caressed him, his muscles twitching and jerking at its ministrations. Finally, all was the lake; endless, kind, grinning.

_ Grinning? _

‘Oh come now, homunculus, you’ll not shy away so easily, will you?’ the grin asked him, teeth jagged and sharp against the void.

A bolt shot up Whitehead’s spine, his muscles suddenly alight with a filthy, exquisite agony. The leather was not at his back, not anymore.

Another bolt. And another. And another. 

_ When had the wizard stripped him of his breeches? _

Whitehead screamed against the pain that now arched from his backside to the seam of his skull - voice hoarse and shaky with horror. 

The leather rained blow upon blow against the soft, pale, shivering flesh of his buttocks. Whitehead grabbed fruitlessly at the blanket beneath him, begging for any comfort it could give, but the leather did not cease. O’Neil did not cease.

A braid caught at his stones and Whitehead leapt forward with a yowl - a cat caught in a wicked, slicing snare - raking his hands into the blanket beneath him and screaming out into the thick, unbearably hot air of the tent. 

He screamed, and begged, and wailed; howling against the pain as hot, thick liquid ran down his thighs and waist.

The blanket was sodden, thick wool saturating quickly with red, vital blood.

_ Not just blood _ .

Whitehead felt his stomach twist, pinpricks radiating across his body.  _ He was still hard. Still horrifically, achingly hard, leaking against the blanket beneath him _ .

Blood and slick mingled in a sticky, squelching mess against Whitehead’s trembling body, and he let out a ragged cry as he felt O’Neil’s boot press down at the base of his spine, forcing his prick into the hot, wet wool.

‘ _ Hot like a cunt isn’t it, Whitehead _ ,’ the wizard's voice curled at the base of his skull, ‘ _ hot like an arsehole, hot like a wound. _ ’

Whitehead shuddered at the pressure, groaning and gurgling into the blanket as O’Neil’s boot forced him to thrust his prick against it.

_ ‘Fuck yourself into it, Whitehead. Take it all in _ ,’ O’Neil growled into him, voice low, and sticky, and  _ scorching _ .

The leather did not stop. It fell, bloody and unyielding, against Whitehead’s backside and stones, his screams now silent and constant; his throat raw with want and terror.

At one final, devastating blow of the leather, his release came: a soundless, shuddering pulse - his hips forced so far into the blanket that the cot bowed against the floor. Whitehead rasped into the wool, mouth locked wide - agonising, horrifying - as O’Neil jammed his boot into his coccyx, forcing out the last of his spend. 

There was no lake. Not now. 

He was still there. In the tent. With a boot at his back and seven braids of leather, covered in his blood, cast carelessly beside him onto the soaking blanket. 

His face now frozen in place, eyes and jaw stretching open in a contorted, terrifying parody of post-melting bliss. 

The pinpricks flooded through him, causing his form to shake as if spending again. 

O’Neil’s voice was at his throat, now, thick brogue echoing across the span of Whitehead’s skull:

‘There you are, now, homunculus. Show me your face.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief and very important note: the number 7 is something I obsess over a little bit, for several reasons, but its use here is related to the Seven Stages of Alchemy (calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation, and coagulation). This links directly to alchemy (obviously) and also (not exactly step by step but in a similar vein) mirrors Whitehead's 'becoming' here.


	6. Becoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whitehead finally experiences the transcendence of mushroom-based thembofication.

Whitehead fixed his eyes on the corner of the tent, where the canvas met. There were mushrooms there, now, too. Large, thick, white mushrooms. He could almost see them growing. Spores becoming hyphal knots becoming pinheads, blooming into fleshy, pale, caps right before his eyes.

His mouth was still stretched wide, eyes still glazed and unblinking - a doll, grinning and useless.  _ Perhaps that was all he had ever been _ . 

The mushrooms did not seem to care; they bloomed and rotted and bloomed again as Whitehead lay on the soaked blanket, staring at them. He wondered if they were growing outside of the tent as well. Could the others see them? Were the others still there?

_ Had they heard him? _ Surely they must have heard him. Whitehead’s face grew hot at the thought, shame and terror lapping at the corners of his consciousness. 

The mushrooms continued to bloom. Shame was not theirs to know. 

Whitehead’s blood and spend dripped down onto the canvas, a near endless stream, nourishing the fungi as they pushed to the surface. Gentle hyphae bonding and curling together, knitting themselves together to join as mycelium - to join as a part of the whole. 

Whitehead reached out to them as they grew before him, breathing heavily as he felt them brush against his mind. Endless, ancient, exquisite. 

The rot and heat of the Earth radiating from them in pulsing, perfect waves. The lake was gone, unnecessary. It was the warm wetness of dirt, and rot, and flesh, that held him now. An unyielding, neverending embrace. 

Bloodied bones wrapping around his chest; pinheads sprouting and blooming to full caps between his ribs; vines curling beneath his skin, kissing at his nerves.  _ This was bliss _ . 

Beyond any heavenly bliss he had imagined, beyond any wondrous rapture he had been promised in his lessons. The writhing of leaves and buds as they burst through his skin transcended it all. Mushrooms were shivering free from his spine, feeding deeply from his body and soul, rendered fat and healthy as a result of his viscera; what more could he ask for?

Life blossoming from him.  _ Him! _ A wreck of a creature; a homunculus; no longer a man and hardly a woman. 

Whitehead lay still, time disappearing as an abstract - unneeded in the space he now occupied. 

A nudge at his thigh meant nothing, now. A branch? A hoof? What did it matter? Even as the pressure grew, he could not bring himself to care. He was split open, ribs splayed and shimmering, and from him grew life. He was an unholy, beautiful thing; frozen face and body stained with blood and seed and silver. 

A voice at his ear - no longer in his head - said something. It was coarse and insistent and strange, but he was  _ blooming _ , the gore of his broken body laid out as a feast - nourishment for life as it sprouted and twisted from his core. A perfect torment. What was the coarseness of a voice in comparison to that?

‘You’ve found it, haven’t you Whitehead?’ the voice came, words reverberating in the space Whitehead now inhabited.

_ Found what? _ He had  _ been  _ found, that much was clear. Maybe that was what the voice meant. He was not sure  _ he  _ had found anything.

‘Once more, then, homunculus. Once more and you’ll be ready.’

_Once more?_ _Once more what?_ It didn’t matter. Not really. 

The writhing of mycelium wrung an ecstatic flood from his core, shuddering euphoria blocking the voice once again, dripping onto the floor, further nurturing the fungi. Thin, crawling fingers pressed against him, creeping under his bones and eking out rapture upon rapture.

He gave himself over to it, luxuriating in the cycle of decay and rebirth that now played upon him.

‘ _ Whitehead _ .’

The voice was stern.  _ Stern? _ Was that correct?

A bolt of lightning shot up Whitehead’s spine, and he arched against it, relishing the sparks of sudden bright, divine pain. More blood dripped from him, more food for the Earth.  _ More: he wanted more. The Earth wanted more _ .

‘ **_Whitehead_ ** **.** ’

He was being rolled over. He fought against it; if he was turned then the fungi growing from his spine would be crushed! The vines would be severed! He couldn’t…

His eyes came into focus on a peculiar sight. Pink, rough flesh. Black pools of ink. White, shining teeth. Convex and concave in turn. Stringy, brown-grey tendrils. A bizarre series of features sprang across Whitehead’s vision. He frowned, concentrating, trying to puzzle it out.

_ Face _ .  _ It was a face!  _

‘Look at me, Whitehead,’ the face spoke, sharp teeth glinting, ‘I’m not done with you yet.’

Whitehead barked out a laugh, the rawness of his throat soothed by the flowers that bloomed from it.  _ Not done! What did that mean?! What did it matter?! _

The face, assumedly connected to some kind of body, twisted oddly.  _ An expression _ . 

Whitehead watched as it twisted and contorted, muscles ( _ muscles! This was not a form fueled by the Earth, but by base flesh and blood and cruel magic, no such finesse as his own) _ moving strangely beneath the skin.

There was a pressure, somewhere distant and strange, and Whitehead felt a ripple course through the vines beneath his skin. His mouth, still contorted and wide, let out a  _ hiss _ at the sensation.  _ Intruding, alien _ . 

‘Look. At. Me. Whitehead,’ the face growled, sharp teeth bared, black eyes shining.

_ O’Neil _ .  _ The Devil. _

Whitehead blinked, staring eyes finally able to open and close as needed.  _ O’Neil _ .

The pressure increased, and a jolt of realisation burst through him.  _ A jolt of pleasure _ . Something was inside him. Not a vine, or a blossom, or a mushroom. This was flesh and blood, curling towards his core.

Another jolt, quickly following the first. Whitehead gasped, his form tensing and twitching.  _ Fingers _ .  _ O’Neil’s fingers. _

He reached out, swallowing heavily as his hands found a velvet doublet, wrapped around a broad, hard body.  _ O’Neil’s body _ .

‘There you are, Whitehead,’ O’Neil grinned, as understanding flooded through Whitehead.

_ The tent. He was still in the tent. Face to face with the Devil. With the Devil whose bonds had loosened around his exhausted form. _

Whitehead could not see where O’Neil’s hands were, but he could feel them. That insistent, burning pressure within him. 

His face flushed, warm and sticky - with tears and seed and blood - as he blinked again, feeling his eyelashes caress the heated skin of his face. Tiny, individual kisses. Reassurances that his form was still intact. That he was free, for the moment,

_ Perhaps the mushrooms had survived. Perhaps the vines had not been severed _ .  _ Perhaps _ …

All thought was wiped from his mind as another jolt shot through him. He wriggled towards it, hands still clasping at O’Neil’s doublet, panting softly. 

Whitehead knew - dimly - of some dual organ in a male body, located where those fingers were pressing, but that could not be the reason for the aching sparks that were suddenly flashing up his spine, could it? 

_ And it would not be located in a body such as yours, would it? The body of a homunculus; so barely formed. _

Whitehead shivered, the muscles in his legs spasming as O’Neil worked. The pleasure was near unbearable, horribly offset by the agony of his back and buttocks - sharp, bloody lines cutting arcs of blistering pain through the pleasure.

It was an unsettling process, Whitehead considered numbly as a searing pleasure-pain raced through him, coming back to oneself. 

His limbs shook with exhaustion, where only moments earlier they had been shaking with joy. His bones trembled beneath his skin, where they had been encased with writhing, kindly vines. His prick was hard and aching once again - it had not been there, in the joy of mushrooms and flowers. He had been sexless, smooth, sterile, if only for a blissful moment. 

O’Neil grinned at him.  _ The grin of a fox: cunning, ruthless, biting teeth _ . 

Whitehead arched off of the bed with a shout as the wizard ground his fingers against that unholy place within him again. He whimpered into the pleasure, face now unstuck and malleable, and he clenched his eyes shut as O’Neil leaned in and placed an open-mouthed kiss to his bleeding shoulder. 

‘Still delicious, eh, Whitehead?’ the wizard muttered, and Whitehead shuddered at the contact.

O’Neil’s tongue felt rough and cat-like against his skin, lapping at the blood where it refused to clot, still dripping from his damaged skin. The wizard’s fingers had stopped their assault, and Whitehead exhaled as his muscles eased their shivering. 

It felt different, now. Less frantic. Less frenzied. 

Whitehead was scared, yes, but it was not the terror of a creature caught in a snare, nor a worm bisected by a shovel, not anymore. It was controllable, nameable. 

He could move, and he could speak if he so wished. The wizard’s breath was at his ear, but it did not give him cause to scramble away in horror. Whitehead smiled, a small, bruised affair, at the realisation:

_ It gave him power _ .  _ Pulsing, warm power. This freedom was temporary, but he would use it as he wanted. He would take his fill. _

He removed his hand from O’Neil’s doublet and cupped the man’s face, opening his eyes to see the wizard’s expression freeze. Now, Whitehead grinned. Now it was  _ his  _ turn. 

‘Surely you shall not only kiss me there, Devil?’ he whispered, voice warm and husky.

Whitehead pulled the wizard’s face towards his own, until their foreheads were resting together, until their breath was shared. The scent of mugwort and hops was gone, now, replaced with mushrooms and nectar.  _ His own scent. _

‘Surely, Devil, you shall kiss me here, as well?’ Whitehead pressed one of his fingers to his lips, suckling at the tip, not turning his gaze from O’Neil’s. 

The wizard’s black eyes widened, his mouth momentarily slack, and Whitehead laughed softly.

‘Will you kiss me, Devil,’ he whispered, pulling his finger from his mouth and brushing it against the wizard’s lips. 

O’Neil’s mouth opened, as if to speak, and Whitehead pushed his finger inside, using it as a fish-hook to pull their lips together. 

He moaned softly into the kiss, licking over his finger and the wizard’s tongue, grinding down on the fingers where they had stilled within his body, reveling in the sensation. O’Neil was still unmoving above him, frozen in place as Whitehead sucked at his tongue and ran his teeth over his lips.

Whitehead smiled, wrapping his arms around O’Neil’s neck and pulling them closer, until the larger man’s entire weight was upon him. He moaned at the heft of the wizard, and ground his hips upward - prick brushing against O’Neil’s own where it still lay bare - releasing delicious sparks as they moved together. 

O’Neil’s prick hardened quickly against his own as Whitehead moved, and Whitehead pulled away from the kiss with a breathy chuckle. The wizard had still not moved. He seemed to be entirely frozen in place, still staring at Whitehead.

‘You promised you would  _ fill me _ , Devil. Would you deny me that, before I am your puppet once more?’ Whitehead murmured into O’Neil’s mind, reaching lazily down to the man’s prick and taking hold of it with a feather-light grip, ‘would you not fill your puppet, Devil, before it does your bidding?’

Whitehead sighed as O’Neil’s fingers began to move again with tiny, shaking strokes.  _ Wonderful. It felt wonderful _ .

‘That’s it, Devil, open me up for you. Stretch me open for your seed,’ Whitehead whispered into O’Neil’s mind.

Whitehead moaned as O’Neil’s fingers moved over that spot again, angling his hips so the wizard’s fingers would continue to stroke it:

‘Keep your fingers there, Devil, prepare your puppet.  _ Fuck me open _ ,’ he chuckled as O’Neil’s breath caught in his throat.

The wizard’s hips were moving now, grinding down against Whitehead’s hardness, slick and throbbing as it was. 

Whitehead whispered into his mind, filth building on filth, a litany of all the dirty, forbidden things he would have the wizard do to him. 

‘ _ Would you fuck me ‘til I bled, Devil?’  _ he murmured _ , ‘would you use my blood as slick to ease your way? Allow your spend to fill me as blood fell from my cunt? Would you fill me with your fingers, with your hand, perhaps? Fill me as you would a puppet, spread open, bloody and desperate to be filled further?’ _

Whitehead felt O’Neil press against his mind, ichor-slick fingers prying at the gates, but the wizard could not enter. He pressed a kiss to the wizard’s cheek, bruised, chapped lips against rough stubble.

‘You can no longer enter me there, Devil, not for now,’ Whitehead chuckled, his voice high and breathy as he spoke into the wizard’s mind.  _ A woman’s voice, perhaps _ , ‘would you take my cunt, perhaps? As recompense? Fill my body with your seed?’

O’Neil’s hips stilled against Whitehead’s own, and the wizard pushed himself up on his free hand, a surprised, curious expression on his face.

‘You  _ want  _ this, don’t you, Whitehead?’ O’Neil’s voice was low and rough as he spoke, his eyes intrigued, and Whitehead bared his teeth at the wizard.

He canted his hips up so his prick was resting against O’Neil’s once more, and reached up to grab a handful of the wizard’s hair, pulling them together again.

‘Your  _ homunculus _ wishes to be filled, Devil. Finish what you started,  _ fuck  _ this creature full of your seed, bring it to the surface,’ Whitehead jammed his mouth against O’Neil’s, biting the wizard’s lip hard until it bled.

He licked at the blood with a greedy, juddering whimper, sucking the hot,  _ black _ , fluid into his own mouth and rolling it around.  _ Mugwort, hops, the sweet, red apple of mandrake _ . O’Neil’s fingers were still within him again, and Whitehead shuddered as they were removed. 

‘Open up and let your Devil in,’ O’Neil whispered, and Whitehead’s eyes rolled back in his head.

O’Neil’s body shook as he pressed the thick, heavy head of his prick into Whitehead, filling him steadily, steadily, until Whitehead could feel the wizard’s stones against the crest of his buttocks.

Whitehead mewled at the sensation, hips shaking and twitching, his entrance fluttering around the hot, hard length that now filled him. It was overwhelming, it was beautiful, it was horrible, it was  _ perfect _ , 

O’Neil was still, again, his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open; hot, wet breaths brushing against Whitehead’s face. Whitehead pulled their mouths together again, kissing his blood into O’Neil’s mouth; kissing O’Neil’s blood back to him. 

An ouroboros; shuddering, pulsing, bloody,  _ wanting _ . 

‘You promised to fill me, Devil; you promised you would make my tits and belly swell with child, with your  _ seed _ , did you not?’ Whitehead wrapped an invisible hand around O’Neil’s throat and  _ squeezed,  _ hissing as he felt the wizard’s pulse against the pressure, ‘so, cease your shaking and  _ Do. It. _ ’

Something appeared to  _ snap _ within the wizard at this, and Whitehead gasped a cry of relief as O’Neil began to thrust into him like a man undone, unhinged, unfettered by whatever control he had held before. 

The wizard’s prick drew out and slammed into him, hot, pulsing flesh driving deep into Whitehead’s core. Whitehead gasped, all the breath being forced from him. 

The mushrooms pulsed around him as he surrendered himself to the sensation, the hot, wet Earth swallowing him up and spitting him back out as the wizard drove into his quivering form.

_ The push and pull, the blood, the mercury, the semen, the spit, all of it shoved deep within him and dragged back out at the crown of this creature’s prick.  _

Whitehead screamed, clutching at O’Neil’s shoulders and pushing his hips back against the wizard’s prick as it filled his cunt.  _ His cunt _ . 

Whitehead grinned into O’Neil’s shoulder, a mania overcoming him as he urged the wizard on. 

His grin was fixed, now, and he screamed himself hoarse; crying out for his cunt to be filled, for the wizard to fuck him until he could no longer see, to fuck him full of his seed and leave him a limp, useless doll, Whitehead writhed and screamed into the hot air of the tent as O’Neil fucked him; hips driving back and forth with bone-shaking force.

The bed shook beneath them, sodden blanket sticking to Whitehead as he grabbed onto O’Neil and held them tightly together. The bloody lines upon Whitehead’s back and buttocks adhered the blanket to him even further, barely coagulating blood sticking to soft wool, causing Whitehead to scream like an animal when O’Neil pulled it away and dragged him onto his lap. 

Whitehead worked his legs furiously, impaling himself again and again onto the pulsing hot member, splitting himself, healing himself, balling his fists into O’Neil’s blood and sweat-soaked doublet as he moved. 

He would release soon. He knew he would. He would release without a single touch to his prick. The burning pressure within him; the promise of the wizard’s spend; the agonising pain at his back and his buttocks as O’Neil’s hands parsed across them.

It was too much. It was all too much. It was all too perfect. It was all too… _ oh... _

Whitehead threw back his head and screamed as he released, body convulsing obscenely as if struck by lightning. His mind was blank, his body was agony, and without warning O’Neil’s seed filled him beyond anything he could have hoped for, sending him into a mad, spiraling whirlpool of gibbering, broken desire.

He was full; he was weeping; he was  _ new _ . His body was no longer of such things as a man or a woman would know; he was torn apart and stitched together as a creature of transcendence, of ancient power. All he could hear, now, past O’Neil’s whispered encouragements, past the ragged heat of his own breath, were the mushrooms.

Pulsing, shuddering, holding him close as he fell back into the hot, wet blanket. Whitehead pushed against them as they pushed into him, opening and closing his body around them as they burrowed beneath his skin; as they burrowed up from within his shuddering form in turn. Lust, pleasure, power, terror, it all burned into him alongside the mushrooms; every part of himself splayed across a blanket soaked in blood and seed as they wormed their way through him. Spread out as a specimen, dissected and wrenched apart. Cut upon tiny cut revealing him to the Earth as it held him.

His eyes were open. They were open and staring and unyielding in the face of this unfolding. Of this becoming.  _ Homunculus _ , the fungi whispered,  _ our homunculus _ . Whitehead grinned, a wide, knife-sharp grin; blood dripping from his eyes, his ears, his nose as the mushrooms pushed through him.  _ Our beloved creature _ , they whispered,  _ our beloved, bloodied creature _ .

Whitehead fell. It no longer mattered where. The mushrooms had him; the mushrooms saw him, and knew him, and loved him.

What could a creature of the Earth, of rot and of blood and of seed, desire, more than that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mandrake is a herb often associated with protection, dark magic, fertility, and love/lust.   
> 'Open up and let the Devil in' is so clearly a sex thing so it had to be included here, although (in my humble onion) I don't think Whitehead's magic stems from Thee Devil.  
> Instead, I think that O'Neil is seeking to open Whitehead up to worshipping Thee Devil, but when he finally cracks Whitehead like a walnut he sees that he is instead a creature of Mushrooms and The Earth. In a Dark Magic vs. Green/Grey Magic kind of scenario.


End file.
